The Score Magazine May 2017 | Page 38

INTERVIEW WITH Penn Masala Welcome back to India and congratulations on your new album Yuva! We are delighted to have you back again this year. Last year you came to India after a gap of three years. What brings you back again this year and please tell us that this is going to be annual tour now! Hari: Last year’s tour was an amazing experience for everyone in the group. We could not have anticipated the kind of response we got, and we are lucky to have received the opportunity to come back and perform for everyone again this year. For most of us, this is a chance to be back in a country that is in a sense another home outside the US. From the rich artistic and musical environment to the family we have here, there are countless things about India that we love. We hope to be back as often as we can! The Hindi and English songs in the mash-ups fit together seamlessly despite different languages. How do you come up with these incredible combinations of songs? Praveen: Picking mixes is simultaneously one of the most exciting and difficult aspects of the group. There are a lot of factors to consider, such as audience appeal, the thematic fit between two songs, and a potential song’s musical fit within an album. At the end of the day, anyone in the group can 36 The Score Magazine highonscore.com suggest ideas for mash-ups, but we think critically about styles that we haven’t covered recently and certain artists we would like to cover before making a final choice on which mash-ups we move forward with. What is the idea behind the new album Yuva? Who came up with this name? Hari: After reflecting upon the variety of mixes on this new album, the group came up with the name Yuva together. Yuva represents a stage of life with which every individual is familiar. In this album, we simply celebrate youth, illustrating a natural progression from innocence to independence. From ballads to party anthems, each track on Yuva evokes in us visceral memories of youth, providing different tastes of what it means to be young. No matter your age, we hope you’ll enjoy it the same. Last year, your show was sold out in Kolkata within seconds of going live, leading you guys to have two shows! How was the experience in performing here and how is performing in India different from performing abroad? Pranay: Performing in two shows back-to-back was an unexpected but unbelievably exciting experience! We were